Lifestyle
Which Tesla Model Y flavor is best for you? Performance vs. Long Range
At some point in time, every Tesla Model Y prospective buyer faces that tough decision to weigh the pros and cons of a Performance variant over the Long Range. Tesla’s Model Y design studio is as simple as it can get. Two toggle buttons labeled “Long Range” and another labeled “Performance” stands between you and ownership.
For some, it’s an emphatic and instinctive yes when it comes to buying a fully-loaded Tesla, and for others, the decision to splurge a tiny more on a Model Y Performance takes some pondering.
YouTube channel The Kilowatts compared the two Model Ys, highlighting the main similarities and subtle differences between the Long Range and Performance variants. The results revealed something quite interesting: the efficiency of the two vehicles was remarkably similar.
In the short but spirited comparison between the two cars, the handling and acceleration of the Model Y Performance seemed to stick out as a critical difference. Equipped with 21″ Überturbine wheels, performance brakes, lowered suspension, and a carbon fiber rear spoiler, the Model Y Performance variant combined with the optional Performance Upgrade Package is ideal for an owner who wants a quicker and more intense driving experience.
Host Ryan Levenson pushed the handling and speed capabilities of the Model Y in his comparison of the two Model Y variants. Navigating through a series of sharp turns, Model Y with the Performance Upgrade package maneuvered with confidence and ease. The all-electric crossover hugged the road smoothly and handled the turns with exceptional quality.
The vehicle’s stability and handling were also highlighted by automotive veteran Sandy Munro, who once said driving the Model Y was like “riding on rails.”
A long-distance test of the two vehicles proved that the efficiency was not much different between the Long Range Model Y and the Performance version.
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After a 205-mile venture from the Tesla’s famed Kettleman City Supercharger to the San Francisco Bay Area, under regular driving conditions and without a purposely intent to hypermile, the Long Range configuration of the vehicle showed an efficiency of 323 watt-hours per mile. In contrast, Model Y Performance had an efficiency of 327 watt-hours per mile, proving the efficiency is strikingly similar between both vehicles in long-distance driving scenarios.
The Model Y Performance and Long Range both have the same 75 kWh battery pack, but the Performance with the optional Performance Upgrade has 31 miles less range than its adversary, as a result of the larger and heavier wheels. The Long Range has a 4.8 second 0-60 MPH acceleration rate, while the Performance has a 3.5 second time.
Model Y Performance boasts a higher top speed by 10 mph and 1.3-second improvement in 0-60 time. In addition, the Performance version comes with improved brakes, larger wheels, a spoiler, and aluminum alloy pedals will cost $8,000 more. The Long Range starts at $52,990, while the Performance variant has a starting price of $60,990, before incentives.
Tesla continues to improve efficiency and range through software updates and battery advancements. A study by Kevin Rooke showed that Tesla’s battery efficiency among its fleet of Model S, Model X, and Model 3 has continued to improve, year over year.
Tesla continues to increase the total driving range of its vehicles, pushing past the 400-mile per single charge range, through improvements in battery efficiency and not necessarily increases in battery capacity.
When making that decision between the Model Y Performance and Long Range variant, you’ll want to determine the personal value of winning that stoplight drag race and improved cornering capabilities. After all, not many of us will come even close to maximizing the value of a 155 mph top speed. In terms of efficiency, the vehicles are nearly identical.
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Watch the Kilowatts Model Y comparison video below.
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Firmware
Tesla unlocks in-car web conferencing to extend Google Meet, Teams and beyond
Tesla’s Summer Update lets owners join Google Meet, Teams, and Discord calls via cabin camera.
Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, which just began rolling out to customer vehicles, now links the built-in web browser with the in-cabin camera feed and microphone input, thereby letting owners join video calls on nearly any browser-based service instead of just Zoom.
The change appears in Tesla’s own release notes for software version 2026.26 under “Web Browser,” which states that the vehicle can now use its interior camera and cabin microphone when a website requests access, with permission granted the same way a desktop browser handles it. As NotATeslaApp notes, this feature opens the door to Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Discord, and other webcam-enabled sites to activate the in-car cabin-facing camera. The feed automatically crops and zooms to center the driver in frame.
Tesla has offered in-car video calling before, but only through a dedicated Zoom app that launched at the end of 2022, a stripped-down browser preloaded with Zoom’s own web client and gated behind Premium Connectivity. Opening the full browser to any camera-requesting site removes that walled garden. Elon Musk first called video conferencing “definitely a future feature” back in 2020, when the pandemic pushed remote meetings into daily life, so this update effectively finishes something Tesla has been promising for six years.
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
The feature keeps the same restrictions that applied to Zoom on Tesla vehicles. It only works while the car is parked; shifting into Drive disables the camera feed, according to the release notes. It is also limited to vehicles running Tesla’s AMD Ryzen infotainment hardware, meaning older Intel-based Model S and Model X units, along with early Model 3 and Model Y builds, don’t get it.
Turning the browser into a general entry point for the in-cabin camera, rather than routing everything through one local app, widens the number of third-party sites that can ask for access, even though Tesla’s permission prompt.
With the Summer update only days into its rollout, be sure to stay with us on TikTok and X to see the latest video demonstrations.
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Elon Musk escalated his monthslong feud with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this week, pledging that his own AI video tool will produce a competing version before the year is out. Responding to a fan-made, AI-generated clip of the ancient epic, Musk wrote on X, “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.”
In June, Musk quoted an xAI-shared trailer built entirely with Grok Imagine Video 1.5, a two-minute-plus reimagining of The Odyssey styled after a 1970s classical Hollywood epic, and predicted “full movies by the end of the year,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That trailer, built from 36 consistent shots by a single creator, was Musk’s proof of concept. This week’s pledge turns that prediction into a specific commitment, tied directly to Homer’s text rather than a generic demo.
Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
When a fan separately proposed that Musk fund a live-action alternative, to “give Mel Gibson $100 million to film an Odyssey adaptation with painstakingly historically accurate ships, armour, weapons, and casting, with all dialogue taken straight from the original poem and delivered in Homeric Greek,” Musk replied with two words: “I’m down.”
The Grok Imagine pledge lands as the tool’s underlying infrastructure has changed hands. Grok is no longer a standalone product, it folded into SpaceXAI after SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI closed in February, meaning the compute behind any Odyssey production traces back to the same Colossus supercomputers now bundled into SpaceX’s pitch to investors. Musk has separately said SpaceX’s own engineering data is being fed into the next major Grok training run, a two trillion parameter model he’s called the “2T run.”
Whether Grok Imagine can sustain a feature length narrative, rather than a series of impressive individual shots, remains the open question.
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Cybertruck
Tesla Mobile App gets a new feature that wrap fans are going to love
Tesla’s Summer Update removes the USB drive step from customizing your car’s digital wrap design.
Tesla’s latest 2026 Summer Update quietly closes out one of the more tedious steps in personalizing a Tesla’s digital appearance. Uploading a custom wrap design used to require a USB drive. Now it doesn’t.
The feature is listed in Tesla’s release notes as “Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App.” The company described it plainly: “Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”
The digital wrap tool has been around since Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, when it launched for Cybertruck owners first, as Teslarati reported at the time. Getting a design onto the car meant formatting a USB drive, creating a folder named exactly “Wraps,” dropping in PNG files sized between 512×512 and 1024×1024 pixels and under 1 MB each, then plugging the drive in and applying the wrap through Toybox. Tesla expanded the tool to other models and renamed it from “Colorizer” to “Paint Shop” with the 2025 Holiday Update, while also adding license plate and window tint customization alongside the wraps.
Custom wraps via mobile app https://t.co/5OydZ26g9p pic.twitter.com/uexU0ZePxu
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
The latest Summer Update removes the USB step from that process. Owners will be able to pull a design from wherever they saved it, whether that’s a download from social media or something built from Tesla’s own GitHub templates, and push it to the car directly through the app.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
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It’s a small fix relative to the rest of this latest release, which also included expanded Grok voice commands, automatic navigation that learns regular routes, and self-driving stats inside the mobile app, all detailed in our rundown of the full Summer Update. The USB requirement was one of the more common complaints about Paint Shop since it launched. Tesla did not say when the wrap upload change would reach individual vehicles, only that the broader update is rolling out now in waves.
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